If you’re a website owner or an SEO specialist, you might have come across the “Discovered – currently not indexed” section while checking your website’s indexation status on Google Search Console. And if you have, you’ll know how frustrating it can be when Google is not indexing an important page you want to appear on the search engine results page.
Our SEO account managers have put together the following guide to get you started – explaining precisely what the issue means, why it happens, and how you can begin fixing it.
What does “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed” mean?
Google Search Console is a platform that helps website owners monitor, analyse and optimise the performance of their websites for Google search results. One such tool is the ability to analyse if a specific page or URL has been crawled or indexed by Google.
“Discovered – currently not indexed” indicates that Google’s crawlers have found your page, but for at least one reason, they haven’t added it to their index. Essentially, your page has been discovered by Google but is not showing up in search results.
If you have a small website with less than 10,000 pages and good-quality content, the URL state will automatically resolve after Google’s crawled the URLs.
Why does this issue occur?
Low-quality content
If your page has low-quality or thin content, Google may choose not to index it. This includes content that does not meet the needs and expectations of its intended audience, is poorly written, lacks relevance or value, or is copied from other sources without attribution. Make sure your content is valuable, relevant, and informative to users.
Duplicate content
Pages with duplicate content on the same website could result in Google not indexing the page, as they will deem it irrelevant, spammy, or as a tactic to manipulate their algorithm to rank higher on the SERP. Google want to present searchers with original and relevant content, so duplicate content will be quickly identified and penalised.
Technical issues
Technical problems will prevent Google from crawling or indexing a URL. This could include broken internal or external links, incorrect robots.txt files, clickable elements being too close together, no mobile optimisation, or server errors.
5 Ways to Fix the Issue
Unfortunately, Google will not tell you the exact reason the page has not been indexed. This makes it harder to fix the issue, so there is no quick solution. Having said that, consider the following steps and with patience, you will be able to get the page indexed and ranking on the SERP.
1. Improve your content
Make sure your content is high-quality, unique, and relevant to users. Remove any duplicate content.
2. Fix technical issues
Use Google Search Console’s crawl errors report identifying any technical issues that are preventing Google from crawling or indexing your pages. Fix these issues as soon as possible.
3. Wait
It’s possible that Google will eventually index your page even if it’s not indexed immediately. If your page is relatively new, it may take some time for Google to crawl and index it.
4. Submit a sitemap
Submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console can help Google discover and crawl your pages more easily.
5. Build backlinks
Building high-quality backlinks to your pages can help them get indexed faster. However, make sure the backlinks are natural and not spammy.
topclick has an excellent team and more than 20 years of experience. We have gained priceless knowledge that will help us deliver an expertly tailored SEO service for your specific business niche. As part of our service, we will give you regular updates, access to granular SEO reporting metrics, and a dedicated account manager to help you achieve the results you need. Contact us today for more information.